Conventional elevators are typically used to transport passengers from a first level upwards to a second level, or from a second level downwards to a first level. Such conventional elevators consist of an elevator shaft connecting the first and second levels, an elevator car mounted in the elevator shaft for movement between the first and second levels, a means for moving the elevator car in the shaft, such as a motor driven winch and cable, call buttons on the first and second levels to create a signal when a passenger on that level wishes to use the elevator, and an elevator controller for controlling the means for moving the elevator. In conventional elevator cars, substantially the entire car is intended to carry passengers. Such cars may include a video camera for security purposes, speakers for broadcasting "elevator music," speech or sound synthesizers for indicating the floors on which the elevator stops, and graphic or text displays for displaying information pertinent to the passengers, such as the floor which will be the next stop, time of day, weather, conference schedules, etc.
Elevators have also found use in theme parks, not as elevators per se, but as part of an attraction. For example, in the Haunted Mansion of Disneyland, California (c. 1967), guests previously waiting in the dimly lit foyer are invited by a spooky voice to move into the adjoining room. There, after the doors are closed behind them, the guests find themselves trapped in a room that stretches (or are they shrinking?). Paintings elongate to reveal that what at first appeared to be ordinary portraits actually depict the demise of their subject, in anticipation of the paranormal displays to come. The Haunted Mansion stretching room is a combination of an elevator platform which lowers, and an apparently solid ceiling which moves in opposition to the floor (and later vanishes in a lightning flash to reveal a hanging corpse). Midway up the walls in the initial position is a mantle, which keeps pace with the floor for a portion of its travel, and then slows to exaggerate the stretching/shrinking effect. The walls are in immediate reach of guests, who are warned to keep away from them, and it is unclear whether defeat of the illusion or a friction burn is the more significant hazard. The room is essentially a series of concentric, telescoping surfaces. The actual descent of the elevator platform is usefully employed to lower guests to a passage beneath the railroad which circumnavigates the park grounds.
In Living Seas at EPCOT, Walt Disney World, Florida (c. 1984) guests view a film depicting a hypothetical undersea research facility. The final sequence shows a schematic of the "hydrolator" vertical lift shafts providing access to the deep water "Seabase Alpha" from an ocean surface platform. Theater doors open to recapitulate in reality the final image of the film, the hydrolator lobby. Guests in small parties wait at one of the several operating hydrolators, which arrive, open their doors to accept guests, close again, and depart. Inside, guests can observe their descent through portals in the sides of the hydrolator cabin. An indicator marks off their descent. Once stopped many hundreds of feet below the surface, another door opens and the guests are received into the Seabase, where fish and other oceanic forms are visible outside large, panoramic windows. Seabase Alpha's hydrolators are phoney. There is no elevator action, and guests are not so much as an inch displaced as they enter one door and exit through the next. The floor of the cabin is on a flexible mounting, and shakes during the simulated descent. Special effects conveyor belts scrolling vertically past the portals, the depth gauge, and sound effects conspire to provide the remaining cues of a deep descent.
The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror at Walt Disney/MGM Studio Tour in Walt Disney World, Florida (c. 1990), provides an entire show while passengers remain seated in their elevator cab. In fact their cab is an autonomous vehicle which, at the beginning of the show, is positioned inside a first elevator lift. Guests are transported to a first show position, where the real elevator's doors open and the guests witness a special effects sequence located at that floor of the building. The doors close, and the guests are transported to a second floor where their cabin trundles through a show set and, under cover of darkness, enters a second elevator lift. This second lift is of considerably higher performance and is able to hoist the cab quite rapidly and then provide one or more zero-G drops.
In Caesar's Palace, Las Vegas, Nev., the Caesar's Magical Empire dinner show first admits guests into an Egyptian themed treasure room. As with the Haunted Mansion elevator, this is a disguised elevator platform. As the floor begins its descent, more and more of the rough-hewn rock walls of the chamber are revealed until the bottom of the travel is reached. There, a door appears and opens to admit guests to a the secret dining catacombs.
None of these prior art attractions attempt to disguise a ride or other special effects attraction as a conventional elevator. Accordingly, a need exists for an elevator which functions as and appears to be a conventional elevator, but which can selectively provide an extraordinary special effects experience to an unsuspecting passenger.